


O scelus

by BlueRam



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 12:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9180952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRam/pseuds/BlueRam
Summary: “It’s what you wanted isn’t it? To see the truth…to watch his world unravel time and time again to prove that you were right. To prove that the path you took was just?” Harry flinched at the icy breath against the shell of his ear. How cold each word was, the undertone of hissing snakes searching for the deceit in his own words…in his own beliefs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet from the gift bundle I had compiled for my readers.

 

“It’s what you wanted isn’t it? To see the truth…to watch his world unravel time and time again to prove that you were right. To prove that the path you took was just?” Harry flinched at the icy breath against the shell of his ear. How cold each word was, the undertone of hissing snakes searching for the deceit in his own words…in his own beliefs.

He had done the right thing, he stood by the truth that he had done the right thing! Dumbledore didn’t lead him astray, Voldemort was mad! They had all seen it, from the moment of the first war and then the second…when the man would kill man, woman and child without a thought. Would slaughter innocents to see his will done…and even then, what was his will to begin with? What did Voldemort fight for?

“Guilt…how fragile humans are that they so easily succumb to it. It disgusts me…you disgust me, my precious master.” The drawl was mocking as frigid phantom limbs wrapped around his body, a feeling of dread and fear that was not his own, borrowing under his skin… the echoes of tortured souls long gone… music that served to torture his weary soul. He stood at the edge of a tall building, unseen by the masses of people who lumbered below, smog thick and heavy in the air, and sunlight barely breaching the self-imposed barrier that humans had created.

That’s right…the world he had once known no longer existed, not since becoming the Master of Death without so much of a choice and more so necessity. Everything he had ever known had turned on its head without him ever realizing, a slow poison that spread its roots the moment he had won the second wizarding war in 1998. He had attained immortality, something so many sought and did not understand. He stood on the sidelines as his friends aged, lived their lives and their family grew. Watched as they desperately tried to keep him anchored to their reality, as month after month he slowly began to dissociate.

Dissociate until he was no more…lost in the moments of what ifs on the behest of ruby eyes that were once beautiful dark pools. As it were, the world moved on without him. The world destroyed itself with countless wars, laid its grave with the desecration of Mother Nature…oh how her children slight her so. He stood, untouched by time, numb… yet…a strange stir of fire within his heart. With death at his back, draped in the cloak of invisibility he closed his eyes…and wondered.

What if…

He woke in the year 1945… his present 1960. He hadn’t time travelled, that much he understood, but for some odd reason death had answered his wish…and his ‘what if’ became reality. Death had questioned if he was confident that the path he had took as the 17 year old Harry Potter was the right one, the just one. He had said yes, vehemently so…Voldemort could not be saved, he had fallen too far, and even if Tom still existed within the monster…nothing would have been different.

That’s what he had thought…still stood by, even though he…

“Tell me, Master. What did Voldemort fight for? Will you put an end to him yet again…even with your fragile…”

* * *

“Ah, so you’re back.” Tom drawled lazily as he turned yet another yellowed page of on old tome Harry couldn’t begin to understand. The man didn’t seem interested in the least, hunched over his work table as he ignored the world around him, the flames of the fireplace casting an almost eerie reddish glow across the man’s study.

“I just needed air, I told you I would return.” Harry replied lightly, pulling of his coat before turning his back to the man to put it in its rightful place. He should have taken it off in the receiving room but…

He could feel Tom’s heavy stare boring into his back, as if to catch him in a lie. It had always been that way between them, ever since he stepped into the man’s life. He played the part of a small time clerk at an obscure book store in Knockturn Alley. No one would ask too many questions about his existence, not even question his strange likeness to the wealthy Potter family, so far removed from politics. He had caught Tom’s attention, by being his clumsy self, literally falling over the man in an attempt to track down a book that had obviously been misplaced in the store.

Tom had not been amused, had sneered at him even with a weathered book clutched in his hands. A book with parseltongue script that he knew spoke of terrible dark magic…Horcruxes. Before the man could dismiss him, his eyes had set upon the mark of his exposed wrist…the symbol of the deathly hallows. Dark eyes had been unreadable…but in that moment he knew…

Tom…he would never let him go, not until he proved himself no longer useful to his cause. In that moment he had remembered Death’s question…if he had chosen the right path, would he do what was needed to be done should Tom prove the making of Voldemort yet gain.

What was Voldemort’s cause…?

“You think too loud.” Harry didn’t even flinch when a heavy hand fell on his shoulders. He had always been strangely aware of Tom…so aware that his purpose became blurred, and Death’s question blurred at the edges. So aware that his heart raced, and his throat tightened up because merlin damn it he had…!

“Tom, you can’t do this! It’ll destroy you—you’ll become a Merlin forsaken shadow of the ma…” Harry began furiously, turning to face Tom with a haunted look about him, green eyes wide as he desperately held onto the wizard’s arms.

Tom, his expression was as dead as it always was…long fingers gripping Harry’s chin and tilting the man’s head towards him. Oh, how much terror and loss were in those glistening green eyes.

“Oh, I see. You love me…how quaint.” Tom smirked cruelly, his thumb an almost gentle caress against soft skin. A shadow of a raspy undertone filled with mockery when Harry almost flinched, pulling away from the man.

“It is a horrible fate to live forever. You won’t achieve your goals…you’ll spell your own destruction.” Harry spoke softly, glaring at the crackling fire as Tom moved back to his desk cluttered with horcrux research.

“And what are my goals, Harry?” Tom asked simply, amused as he ran his fingers over a single parchment, holding it tightly in his hand.

“I…” Harry said nothing else, clenching his hands tight, his heart hammering painfully in his chest, something burning at his eyes, but it could have never been tears.

“He loves me, and with his love his resolve is broken. Woe is you, Master of Death.” Tom paused, before finally looking into Harry’s eyes once more, his own dark eyes fierce—a flash of red in their wake as he spoke with a dangerously foreboding whisper.

“I will conquer death, I will see this world built in my image…and you, precious Harry… you’ll stand by side and witness it all…after all, if you love me…how can you hope to stop me—destroy me.”

Harry said nothing, his knuckles cracking for how tight he clenched his fist. Death was right, he felt guilt, but not for the reasons the entity thought. The path he took was the right one, he did not feel remorse for killing Voldemort in 1998, but here in this new reality... time having restarted strangely in the blink of an eye, he felt guilt…because unlike what Tom thought, he would kill the man he loved to never see Voldemort born anew in the blink of an eye.


End file.
